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[MUSIC PLAYING]
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Why did this wonderful
city grow so big, so rich,
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and so powerful?
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Well, one answer has to be
the site that the early Romans
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chose to found their city.
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Rome famously is
a city of hills--
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the seven hills of Rome.
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Well, in fact, if
you count them they
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are rather more than
seven, and no one
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seems able to agree which
seven you should include.
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But leaving that idea aside,
we can say with confidence
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that this is a city
of hills and valleys.
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Now, down in the city centre
it's actually rather hard to tell that.
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And if you've got the experience
of wandering around Rome,
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you might well have realised
that over the years,
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as inundation from the
Tiber, and years and years
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of continuous habitation
and demolition,
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have raised the ground level
up in places in the city.
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We'll see that the modern ground
level is five or six metres
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above the ancient ground level.
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And that's why we've come up
here to this lovely Pincio
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hill on the northern
edge of the city, with a wonderful view behind me.
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And you can see there that
difference in elevation.
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So thinking about the landscape
of Rome, we have hills
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and we have the river valley.
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The River Tiber, navigable
from the sea inland,
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up to this point,
and well beyond here,
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creating a highway from the
sea, inland for the transport
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of goods, crops, and materials.
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As well as transport by
river, the site of Rome
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is well connected by land.
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A number of major routes passed
through here or close by.
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And where the river shallows
out into gravel shoals
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on either side of
Tiber Island, there
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is a natural crossing point
where the roads can get over,
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so it really is a pivotal
point of connection.
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And really what
these hills are, are
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spurs of a volcanic plateau.
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Over the years, tributary
streams winding down
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to the main river,
the Tiber, below us,
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have cut grooves or valleys
in the side of this plateau,
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forming finger like spurs
that are the hills of Rome--
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the Aventine, the Palatine,
the Capitoline, the Caelian,
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and so on.
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And these hills were where
the earlier settlers decided
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to build their
first habitations,
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because the hills are
for lots of advantages.
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They are high up,
they're defensible,
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they're away from
enemies, from predators.
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So this place was
in the perfect spot.
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A transport hub, a
nexus, a central point
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in this crucial,
central part of Italy,
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where people coming and
going, trading and settling,
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could gather and turn this city
quite rapidly from a series
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of little villages into a
town, from a town into a city,
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and eventually into
a global superpower.
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It really is all
in the location.
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The early history of Rome
is complex and fascinating.
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But the evidence we have
is limited and some of it
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conflicts.
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So to try and make
sense of it, I've
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come to this research academy,
the British School at Rome,
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to talk to its director,
Professor Christopher Smith.
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So, as we think about the
city in this part of Italy,
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who are the first Romans and
what do we know about them?
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It's likely that the
first Romans actually
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thought of themselves,
perhaps, as members
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of individual communities
inside the city.
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We have evidence for settlement
early on in the Palatine Hill,
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from say the eighth century BC.
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We've the postholes
of huts up there.
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We think we've got evidence
from some of the other hills
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to the Capitoline hill.
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There are beginning to be
some quite interesting things
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on Quirinal hill.
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And this settlement, and
some burial evidence,
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and some fortification
evidence, would
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seem to suggest that there
may be discrete communities
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on the each of the hills.
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That goes a long
with priests that
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are connected with
individual hills,
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and festivals that
seem to be connected
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with individual hills.
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So we've talked about
the site of the city
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and you've mentioned
archaeological evidence
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like postholes and burials.
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But of course, there's also
a rich literary tradition
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and mythical tradition
about the origins of Rome.
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How do those two
things fit together?
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It's a huge question about
whether you can actually
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make a literary record map up
to the archaeological record.
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What Romulus and
Remus is said to do
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is to create a single community.
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At some stage, in
the eighth century,
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you see a lot of investment
of energy and effort
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into the Forum of Rome, which
is the natural depression
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between the hills.
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From the eighth century onwards--
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the idea of a synoecism--
a bringing together
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of these communities
does seem to work.
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They develop tighter, and
closer, and stronger senses
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of citizenship
over time, and that
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what we think of as a
city-state, where the broader
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community takes a strong
position vis-a-vis families
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or individual communities.
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So these people, whether we
call them Romulus and Remus,
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or we think of them
as the inhabitants
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of this area, wherever
they've come from,
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they've started fortifying the
hilltops, growing into a town,
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developing themselves into
a city-- but lots of places
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are doing this as we've heard.
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So, what is it about Rome, in
particular, that takes off,
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that grows to be a city
that dominates the world.
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It has a couple of things
that really work well.
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The river flowing through
the middle of the city
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is useful for access for water.
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It's got good access
down through to the sea.
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It sits on a good fording
point across the Tiber,
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sufficiently far
inland that if there's
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any piracy or any disruption
from the sea, it's defended.
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But there are always two
reasons why a city grows,
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and one of them is going
to be about geography.
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The other one is going
to be what you do
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with those natural advantages.
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It's clear that for
some reason or another,
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Rome has a particular attitude
towards allowing people
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to join its community,
which allows
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it to grow its military
strength in a way
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that other cities don't do.
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The classic Roman mechanism,
when they conquer someone,
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is to allow them to be part
of the Roman army as allies.
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So, as Rome begins to grow,
by conquest of its nearest
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neighbours, at the same
time it becomes stronger.
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So there's an ambition
there, and that ambition
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is taking Rome to a very
significant position
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amongst its peer-group.
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Here's a Roman
historian called Livy,
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who's putting a speech into the
mouth of a figure in the city's
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history, explaining why the
city is so well-located.
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"Not without cause,"
he says, "did
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gods and men select this place
for establishing our city,
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with its healthful hills, its
convenient river by which crops
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would be floated down
from the midlands regions,
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and foreign commodities
brought up,"
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--so that idea of trade
and transport again.
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“Its sea, near enough
for use, yet not
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exposing us by too
great propinquity
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to peril from foreign fleets.
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A situation in the
heart of Italy,
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a spot, in short,
of a nature uniquely
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adapted for the
expansion of a city."
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And expand it certainly
did, from those tiny iron age
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villages, growing out on
the separate hilltops,
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down into the valleys, where
the marshes were drained
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and the ground paved and
made good for building--
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we'll see that in the Forum--
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eventually expanding to a city
of a million or so people,
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maybe three to five
kilometres across.
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They can never get
too big because they
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didn't have motorcars, they
had to walk everywhere.
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So the Ancient City is
actually quite compact
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and we can stroll around
it, but nonetheless,
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by ancient standards, in terms
of the size of its population,
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a huge, densely-inhabited,
teeming city,
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pullulating with human
life and activity.
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Those hilltops, where
the early settlers lived,
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took on a sense in the later
city, the imperial city,
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of being elite residences.
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The cool breezes, the healthful
air, the views, all of these
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meant that this
was the place where
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the elite Romans, the
emperors on the Palatine,
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built their villas.
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In the valley bottoms, the busy
arterial roads, all those roads
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leading to Rome and from Rome,
carrying people, wagons, carts,
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and goods, along the
roads out of the city.
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And down in those valleys,
crowded apartment blocks,
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street corners, fountains,
warehouses, shops, restaurants,
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the everyday Rome
where most people
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went about their daily lives.
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